Point of View: Wishes and Likes

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:My dear Rosie, you just touched on one of my major nagging fears in the series. What of Benjamin being bereft of prolong? How old is he now and how much longer can we expect him to survive naturally?

Born December 21st, 1871, so 51 in most of 1922. We can expect 20-40 more years for him, with excellent health care and no unnatural surprises.

Bernard Raoul was born in '13 or '14, so he is likely to be around 30 at the earliest natural time of death for his father. We're unlikely to see a regency period unless Benjamin dies relatively early.

We can expect Protector Bernard to have experienced mentors and advisers, and the people who came of age since the Restoration to have two and three centuries to live, without a whole lot of tolerance for dinosaurs.

Will the Mayhew Restoration survive his death; Will the alliance with Manticore survive his death; Who will survive him as Protector; Will Honor remain Protector's Champion; Will there be a negative power shift within the Keys? It seems the anti-Keys *shrug* would surely use his death to regain the reigns lost when Honor Harrington provided the way for Benjamin to seize his current level of control and authority in the first place.

I wouldn't call them anti-Keys - more super-Keys, or ultra-Keys: Steadholders out to shift power back into the hands of Steadholders instead of the Sword or the Steaders.

But yeah, I'm not worried about them. The old guard is getting old as fast as Benjamin or faster. The ones young enough for prolong aren't often going to be real conservatives that way, and to the extent they are, their own power base is growing old as well.

It is still very early in the timeline of the Mayhew Restoration vs. the history of the planet at large and his Restoration will still be a virtual infant at his unprolonged death.

I see:
Foreign objects in the road ahead.
Low clearance.
Caution Ahead.
Bridge Incomplete.
Timeline Untimely Interrupted.
Lack of Prolong Ahead In Head.
Brace for Impact.
Lost Key Ahead.

All types of warning signs.

Pfft. The Mayhew Restoration itself is a restoration, a return to a traditional way of things. The periods of Key-dominance are the aberrations - not terribly uncommon ones, and often long by the standards of a pre-prolong Grayson lifetime, but not on the scale of Grayson's history. The Keys have suffered multiple embarrassments, the Sword is very popular, prolong is weighing demographics in favor of the Restoration.

It's a personal tragedy that, like Moses, Benjamin Mayhew will have led his people through suffering and struggle to a promised land he will live only long enough to glimpse. But I wouldn't doubt the security of the Restoration itself, if Grayson itself survives. And it does have a good track record that way.

cthia wrote:Elaine Komondorski or Georgia Sakristos. I like her alias nomenclature better.

Here's the thing, I liked Georgia as a character and I was sad that things went down the way they did. I personally, even knowing what I did, would have been more forgiving. (Not just because she's so beautiful -- though I should take that under advisement) but because the life of any slave is beyond my comprehension. It is far too easy for an outsider peering through the distorted window of her life to judge her.

I would like to reserve my final judgment of her until I've had a chance to have her POV and explanation of why she sold out the other slaves.

How desperate at one point in her life did she become after suffering her own personal atrocious limitations as a human. How close did it push her to her breaking point when she must have declared internally and rendered her own version of the famous Scarlet O'Hara line: As God is my witness, I will never be a slave again!

Would you personally hold her past and actions against her, unforgivably?

Dauntless wrote:

cthia wrote:Elaine Komondorski or Georgia Sakristos. I like her alias nomenclature better.

Here's the thing, I liked Georgia as a character and I was sad that things went down the way they did. I personally, even knowing what I did, would have been more forgiving. (Not just because she's so beautiful -- though I should take that under advisement) but because the life of any slave is beyond my comprehension. It is far too easy for an outsider peering through the distorted window of her life to judge her.

I would like to reserve my final judgment of her until I've had a chance to have her POV and explanation of why she sold out the other slaves.

How desperate at one point in her life did she become after suffering her own personal atrocious limitations as a human. How close did it push her to her breaking point when she must have declared internally and rendered her own version of the famous Scarlet O'Hara line: As God is my witness, I will never be a slave again!

Would you personally hold her past and actions against her, unforgivably?

as you say it is (or should be) incredibly hard to judge what she had gone through that she was willing to sell out other slaves, given how the slaves are generally depicted as having a "all us victims got to stick together" mindset.

even the nutter from Torch of freedom who nuked the park, who thought of most slaves as gutless wonders would not have dreamed of selling out others.

cthia wrote:I'd like the POV of Theodosia and Hamish's affair. Blame it on my college days of watching soap operas. It was the "in thing" then. Got you brownie points with the college girls too, who ALL watched them. Hey, when in Rome you eat spaghetti, if you have any hopes of an Italian girl. lol

Aside:
Less than a month now and I'll be walking down the aisle.

This is my first time. I have come to know why people get cold feet. Single Friends! Friends are supposed to be supportive, but it seems they take it as their job to test your convictions and certainty.

"Are you sure you're doing the right thing?"

"Marriage can go North or South and there's hell at the bottom and loneliness at the top -- which results in hell as well."

"It's too much like base jumping. You jump off of a bridge in faith, to plunge headlong into danger not really knowing the gravity of the situation, with an escape clause that can get you out of either at any time if you don't wait 'til it's too late -- a chute or a divorce. Except in marriage, many choose to not want to pull the cord when they need it, wanting gravity to settle the score."

"Marriage is too much like bungee jumping or having sex with a prostitute. You risk it all for less than 60 seconds of thrills but if that band breaks your ass is grass."

" "

Friends!

cthia wrote:I'd like the POV of Theodosia and Hamish's affair. Blame it on my college days of watching soap operas. It was the "in thing" then. Got you brownie points with the college girls too, who ALL watched them. Hey, when in Rome you eat spaghetti, if you have any hopes of an Italian girl. lol

Aside:
Less than a month now and I'll be walking down the aisle.

This is my first time. I have come to know why people get cold feet. Single Friends! Friends are supposed to be supportive, but it seems they take it as their job to test your convictions and certainty.

"Are you sure you're doing the right thing?"

"Marriage can go North or South and there's hell at the bottom and loneliness at the top -- which results in hell as well."

"It's too much like base jumping. You jump off of a bridge in faith, to plunge headlong into danger not really knowing the gravity of the situation, with an escape clause that can get you out of either at any time if you don't wait 'til it's too late -- a chute or a divorce. Except in marriage, many choose to not want to pull the cord when they need it, wanting gravity to settle the score."

"Marriage is too much like bungee jumping or having sex with a prostitute. You risk it all for less than 60 seconds of thrills but if that band breaks your ass is grass."

" "

Friends!